Action Templates

Do you want to learn how much plastic is brought and used in your school? Here's a tool to be used by your classroom or school to develop a plastic audit. From the results, you can set goals and determine your action plan to lower plastic use.

While a 2 minute beach clean might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things it is important. Every piece of plastic that you remove from the marine environment is no longer a danger to the animals that still live there. They won’t break down into micro plastics, strangle seabirds or mammals or end up being ingested. And beach cleaning gets you outside. It enables you to take care of nature and that brings a feeling of wellbeing.

Take a pledge to be a part of the straw free campaign organized by Eco Cycle. Every day 500 million disposable straws are used which contribute to plastic pollution and have a major impact on environment. Learn about the Each One Reach One approach and make a difference.

Did you know that disposable plastic bottles comprise an estimated 20% of Grand Canyon's waste stream and 30% of the park's recyclables? As a Climate Friendly Park, Grand Canyon National Park's staff, partners and stakeholders have made a commitment to take a leadership role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and educating the public about what they can do to reduce their impacts on the park. In order to reduce plastics in the park's waste stream, litter along trails and walkways and greenhouse gas emissions, Grand Canyon National Park has eliminated the sale of water packaged in individual disposable containers including plastic bottles. They encourage everyone to reduce, reuse, refill!

Zero waste practitioners–from neighbourhoods to cities–regularly conduct waste audits to monitor the types and volume of waste generated in a particular area. These systematic exercises help decision makers and communities to develop resource management plans which include at-source segregation, comprehensive composting and recycling schemes, residual waste reduction and product redesign. The data generated will also help city officials design collection systems and schedules, decide what policies to enact, identify what kind of collection vehicles to use, how many workers to employ, and what kind of technology to invest in, among others. All these components lead to our zero waste goal: reduce the amount of resources disposed in landfills and incinerators to ZERO.

In addition to identifying the most common types of waste, audits can also cover the identification of brands and companies that use disposable, low-value or non-recyclable packaging for their products.

The Foam Free Future project was started by four Huliau students at the end of 2014 in response to a deceptive media campaign by the American Chemistry Council defending EPS (“styrofoam”) take-out containers. The focus of the project is to work with community partners to help local business find eco-friendly alternatives to EPS foam take-out containers. In 2016 they joined forced with Surfrider Foundation and various other Hawaiʻi-based non-profits to bring Surfriderʻs Ocean Friendly Restaurants program to Hawaiʻi. Here's the new Ocean Friendly Restaurants Hawaiʻi website.

The OUSD Green Gloves Program is reducing the environmental footprint of schools by decreasing and sorting out waste through the efforts of Nutrition and Custodial Services staff. They installed spoon, fork and full size napkin dispensers in 3 elementary schools to reduce waste and litter. Green Gloves schools can improve student learning, safeguard children's health, save money, and empower kids.

After participating in the Plastic Free July challenge for several years participant Columba went on a mission to rid the Perth city, Western Australia of plastic drinking straws. She went on the march as the "Straw Army", visiting cafés, bars and restaurants. Columba asks them to put straws under the counter out of view and only provide them on request. The café also must display a sign explaining that they do not give straws for environmental reasons.

Throughout the world today there is a serious problem of water pollution, air and soil, caused largely by the large volumes of plastic waste generated daily and receiving little or no treatment. Of plastic waste, less than 3% of of plastic PET bottles are recycled which has led to a global problem resulting in plastic ending up in fields and oceans. Clarity Systems is part of the movement to avoid plastic bottles and invites you to say “NO to bottled water” in Mexico, which already has a serious environmental problem.

People say it is impossible to live without this indestructible plastic food packaging. But not so long ago, plastic didn’t even exist and somehow we all coped. We need to stop our addiction. And it starts with asking our supermarkets for a Plastic Free Aisle.

Plastic Solutions at UC Santa Barbara is a student-driven organization comprised of numerous clubs and organizations on the UCsB campus and in the santa Barbara community. Plastic Solutions seeks to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of single-use plastics in the UCSB community through education, policy initiatives, and the promotion of sustainable alternatives.

The Algalita POPS Youth Summit offers students a chance to learn about current scientific research on plastic pollution, share their action projects with their peers, and work directly with mentors to help improve their projects’ next steps.

Sponsored by Green Schools Alliance, S.T.O.P. is an initiative borne out of the Ban the Bag Conference at the Hewitt School (NY) in 2013 and their follow-up student training on how to talk to lawmakers to encourage them to pass legislation that bans or places a surcharge on single use plastic bags.

This is an invitation to all bars and restaurants, to be part of the movement to eliminate plastic pollution from the source. By simply stating on menus “Straws available upon request”, bars and restaurants can be part of the solution.

A compilation of resources for reducing plastic from a wide range of organizations.

The Smog of the Sea chronicles a 1-week journey through the remote waters of the Sargasso Sea. Marine scientist Marcus Eriksen invited onboard an unusual crew to help him study the sea: renowned surfers Keith & Dan Malloy, musician Jack Johnson, spearfisher woman Kimi Werner, and bodysurfer Mark Cunningham become citizen scientists on a mission to assess the fate of plastics in the world’s oceans.

After years of hearing about the famous “garbage patches” in the ocean’s gyres, the crew is stunned to learn that the patches are a myth: the waters stretching to the horizon are clear blue, with no islands of trash in sight. But as the crew sieves the water and sorts through their haul, a more disturbing reality sets in: a fog of microplastics permeates the world’s oceans, trillions of nearly invisible plastic shards making their way up the marine food chain. You can clean up a garbage patch, but how do you stop a fog?

Beyond The Bottle is a project which maps public sources of potable water, such as water fountains and community wells, for use on the go. Email or text: btb at thecoocoup dot com. You can search by proximity, city or zip code.

The University of Hawaii at Manoa has implemented a new policy on sustainable food products that phases out the use of styrofoam on campus. The approved policy encourages the use of reusable and compostable products, and it bans EPS foam from being used by new or existing vendors. Adaptable template for use as a model for other sustainability challenges.

The policy issued by the University of Hawai'i at Manoa &UHM) seeks to advance environmental stewardship and sustainability on their campus which embodies approaches that reduce life cycle costs, restore or maintain the functioning of natural systems, and enhance human well-being. As part of this broader effort and to address trash reduction, public health, marine life protection, and environmental sustainability, UHM will transition to the use of more responsible food service products on campus. Read about the implementation and applicability of this policy.

A comprehensive action plan for a plastic free ocean. The list is a step-by-step guide to greatly reduce plastic pollution through improved collection and increased recycling efforts. Clean up waterborne plastic waste, particularly in tidal zones where it is densest and most accessible.

Americans buy over 70 billion bottles of water a year, enough to circle the globe more than 370 times! Disposable plastic water bottles create excessive waste, and bottled water companies are profiting from an essential resource that should be accessible and affordable to all. New Dream's Unbottle Water Campaign contains inspiring stories, multimedia resources, and practical tips to help eliminate bottled water in your community. Some of the resources include: